Final Exam Review Guide
Hebb's theory (1949)
Argued that to increase efficiency of synaptic transmission, the basis of long-term memory
that the search for the neural bases of learning and memory focused almost exclusively on
the synapse
In other words, the persistency/repetition of a reverberatory (or trace) activity tends to
induce long-lasting cellular change to stable itself, if an axon of cell A is close enough to
excite a cell B and repeatedly takes part in firing, some growth or some metabolic change
takes place in one or both cells to increase efficiency
In other words, cells that fire together, also wire together
Myers and Sperry (1953)
To find the function of the corpus callosum by an experiment on cats
4 groups:
o The key experimental group with both the optic chiasm and corpus callosum
transected
o A control group with only the optic chiasm transected
o A control group with only the corpus callosum transected
o An unlesioned control group
For each group, an eye patch was put on to show the effect of the transfer from one eye to
another
By showing each cat with a circle or square, the cat has to learn which symbol to press in
order to get a food reward
The results showed that the control groups with either the optic chiasm or the corpus
callosum transected had no effect with the transfer of the eye patch; performed the task
with almost 100% accuracy
But big effect on the performance of the cats in the experimental group when blindfolding
the hemisphere that originally learned the task and tested the performance on the other
hemisphere, found out that the second hemisphere almost had to relearn the task to
perform as well as the first hemisphere
Myers and Sperry concluded that the cat brain has the ability to act as two separate brains
and that the function of the corpus callosum is to transmit information between them
Did a similar study with split-brain patients, except a different visual-discrimination
procedure was used because cutting the optic chiasm produces scotoma (causes blindness)
o Patient was asked to focus on the centre of the display, Visual stimuli were flashed
onto the right or left side of the screen for 0.1 second
o
The results was similar and diffe
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